Centuries
by FlyingBoar
Summary: A telling of the events when Hazel was originally brought back, Hazel-centric, HazelPoV. SoN spoilers i guess...


**(AN) These is the events following directly after Hazel was resurrected. **

* * *

Hazel took a huge gulp of air as the boy pulled her past the final wall of thick blackness. She felt it rush into real flesh and blood lungs and it felt indescribably good to need it again. Her knees, no longer made of mist and spirit, but of real bones and skin, felt weak and she sunk to them as she coughed violently, her body completely startled.

The beautiful air wasn't sulfurous or dusty or smelling of decay. It was muggy, and humid, and sweet. She had no idea she had missed the air so much. It was gorgeous to feel her chest expand as she filled her lungs with it, and to feel the thump-thump of her heart in her ears, no longer made of memories.

She briefly registered that she was wearing clothes, which was a huge relief, before looking up to the dark boy who'd brought her here.

"You...you did it. That's an unholy miracle. You brought me back." she was starting to be a little afraid of this boy. He had just brought back the dead. That wasn't featherweight. She'd never heard of it before. Yet here she was, alive and breathing. Very much alive.

The boy looked at her, his expression worried. "How do you feel?"

Hazel stood up, grabbing the hand he extended to help her up. She didn't much understand the trip back after they'd gotten out of the Asphodel fields. He'd taken her down twisting tunnels that seemed to go on forever, stacked with bleached bones, as her misty fingers clutched his coat. He had pulled her through blackness that screamed at them, whipping around so fast that she thought she would dissolve. She had been submerged in a inky lake, or maybe she had been flying. It had been freezing, wait, no, it had been scalding. Strange lights had flickered around them like little candles, morphing into things that might have been terrible or angelic, but they had flown by too fast.

Hazel brushed off her dress. "I-feel...alive. That was terrifying." she was afraid that she'd start crying, which she really didn't want to do.

The boy, Nico, nodded. Hazel looked around for the first time. They were standing in some woods, and the air smelled like there was a whole lot of stagnant water nearby.

"Um, where are we?"

Nico looked around, his boney neck craning from side to side. "I think we're in the south. Deep south. Other than that, I'm not really sure. Sorry."

Hazel waved off his apology, smiling at the prospect of not being done with her life just yet.

They trudged through the woods, Nico checking something in his pocket every now and then and changing their course. It was night, but Nico moved as if that was no hindrance to him at all, so Hazel stumbled along behind him, still clinging to his cold hand like she might slip back to the Underworld if she didn't hold on. She was grateful for her boots, which protected her from cuts and scratches on the branches. Looking down at herself, she realized in the faint light of the moon and stars above, that she was wearing her riding boots from years ago.

The thin gray robes of the Underworld made up the rest of her outfit, long and dismal-looking. She shivered in the loose scratchy fabric, hoping that she could change at the soonest chance. Maybe it would be rude if she asked Nico to buy some clothes for her...but then, she had no idea where they were going. She wasn't sure if Nico planned to enroll her in school, or keep her locked in his basement or something. He was her brother, or so he said, but she suddenly doubted his intentions. She paused nervously, still clinging to his jacket with one hand, afraid she would dissolve into mist. She reached up and felt that she was wearing a clip in her hair, that her mother had given her the day...

Hazel stood in front of the schoolyard, clutching her lunch sack nervously. Her mother had packed her a sandwich and apple in the little paper bag.

Now her mother was standing next to her. And she smoothed her hair down nicely.

"Now Hazel, go with the other kids and find your teacher. And don you worry, Saint Agnes a real ritzy school, and you'll make friends quick."  
Her mother reached down and stuck a little clip in her hair with one of Hazels stones embedded in it, a garnet. The stones had just started to appear, and Queen Marie was in a perpetually good mood lately.

Hazel smiled anxiously at her mother, who patted Hazels cheek affectionately and turned to walk back to her place, to make travelers believe in hoodoo long enough to pay her her money.

Hazel swallowed loudly in her five year old throat and trudged across the schoolyard, her eyes fixed on her shoes. Other children screamed and laughed as they played games in the yard, before a lady came out and rang a little bell in her hand.

She organized the kids into rows by year, the big kids jumping around and talking crass and making it hard for her while the little kids stood stock-still, trying not to be noticed.  
Hazel was placed in line next to a little Hispanic looking boy with curly hair. His hands perpetually combed through his curls and fiddled with his buttons, but he looked just as nervous for the first day of school as Hazel. While Hazel was still watching him, he turned around suddenly, and Hazel caught a big anxious smile.

"I'm Sammy. Who you be?"

Hazel tucked her head down. "Hazel."

He smiled even wider. "Hi Hazel, you gots some spiffy eyes!"

Hazels hand flew up to touch the skin around her eyes self-consciously. She blinked her gold eyes a few times, embarrassed.

"Thanks." she whispered. Then she frowned thinking that she had to say something nice as well. "Your hair curly."

He gasped. "Really!" He patted his head cautiously with both hands. "You lying? I can't believe it!" he said smiling at her like there was no tomorrow. He started shaking her hand like crazy. "I always wanted curly hair! Woohoo, my momma is gonna be so excited!"

Hazel started laughing with the strange kindergartner who had just made the joke. He acted so enthusiastic that even the scared little kids around him started laughing too.  
The old lady with the bell led yelled at the big kids who were acting rowdy and led the first few rows of kids inside. Hazel stayed close behind Sammy as the children filed into the schoolhouse.

The grouchy old lady put the first two years of kids in a room, then went back out to the other children.

A collection of tables were placed all over the room with small chairs around them.

"Hey, Hazel, let's settle over there, 'fore all the good seats get taken!" Sammy said, pulling Hazel over to a table in the back by the window.

A few other small children sat down at their table, looking shy and scared, baby fat still clinging to all their faces, but soon Sammy had them laughing along with his jokes.

The kids from a year above them booted some of the smaller kids off their chairs, and Hazel crossed her little fingers hoping they wouldn't bother her.

After a few minutes, the same old lady from before grumped into the room. She wrote her name on the board, and said it aloud, but Hazel couldn't read, and it was long and hard to pronounce. She hoped the teacher wouldn't ask her to say it.

Ms. Teacher, as Hazel called her in her head, started by writing weird lines on the board, like the ones in the paper or on street signs.

She grumped at the 1st years to recite them, and they launched into a jumbo song of noise that sounded an awful lot like twinkle twinkle little star.

Ms. Teacher kept grumbling at them and writing stuff on the board, but Sammy poked Hazel in the arm and told her how the teachers voice sounded like she had lost some peanuts up her nose. Hazel giggled a little too loud, and Ms. Teacher glared at him.

"What's your name, hooligan?" she asked nasally, making a face like she got a mouthful of lemons.

"Sammy Valdez." he said nervously, looking worried.

"Mr. Valdez, why don't you tell us what we were learning about."

Hazel leaned forward, "Alphabet." she whispered in Sammy's ear.

"The Alphabet, ma'am."

Mrs. Teacher glared at him one last time before turning glacially back to the chalkboard.

Sammy grinned at Hazel. "Thank Hazel, you're a real good friend!"  
Hazel blushed a little and grinned back. Friends.

A strange boy was putting ice cold hands on her neck and shaking her. Hazel gasped and jumped back, before recognizing Nico. She wasn't dead. And she wasn't five, either. She was still clutching on to Nico's coat, but they were on the ground. Topaz and aquamarine littered the ground around her, and she wanted to scream that her curse still hadn't left her.

"Are you alright? What happened?" he asked, his brow knit together with confusion and worry.

"Did you take any stones?" She yelled fearfully. It would be just perfect if he brought her back to life, and she got him killed.

Nico knit his brow. "What? The gems? No. So that's what you can do?"

Hazel shrugged miserably.

Nico looked at her closely. "Are you alright?"

Hazel sat up. "I don't know. What happened?"

Nico looked at her warily. "Maybe something went wrong. We were walking, and then you just froze. I kept walking and accidentally kinda pulled you over. You've been out for at least half an hour. I expected some technical difficulties, bringing someone back, maybe some rotting limbs and the like, but I was starting to worry. If it hadn't been for your pulse, I might've thought that you slipped back downstairs. Did you ever have black outs or seizures in life?"

Hazel shook her head. "No, I...wasn't here." she decided that she had to tell Nico everything. "It was like a flash from the past. It felt like I was really there."

"We don't need to keep moving. We can rest." he told her.

Nico sat down on a fallen tree log. He sighed wearily and rubbed his face. Hazel sat down as close to him as possible. She bit her lip worriedly. What if she hadn't come back whole? What if she would never be as she was? She needed to get out of these awful gray robes.

"Where were you?" Nico inquired.  
Hazel sighed. "On my first day of kindergarten. I made my first friend. It felt so real, like I was really there."

Nico looked at her like her was concerned. Hazel suddenly felt her eyes prickling. She blinked rapidly, but before she could stop them, tears started pouring down her face. Not only had she been brought back from the dead today, but she couldn't take the ball of guilt that had been much less heavier in in death. She wiped her tears on the sleeves of her wretched robes, but more just took their place.

"Hazel, I...are you okay?" Nico asked stupidly, reaching out to her like he wanted to help, but his hands not making contact, as if he was afraid that if he touched her she might shatter.

Hazel continued to sob, before it all came pouring out. Her curse, how Gaea had ruined her mother, what she had done, and how she died, all broken up into sobs and spoken around the awful lump in her throat, so that she pretty sure Nico couldn't understand any of it.

She leaned against his boney shoulder as she sobbed, clutching the corse black material that felt like the only real thing in the world right then. She was afraid that if she let go of him, she'd fall back through the choking blackness into cold mists where she was made of nothing but shadows and memories.

Nico wrapped skinny arms around her, and she could feel that he was unsure, and slightly uncomfortable, but that he needed this almost as much as she did. He didn't know it, and maybe what he really needed was the real sister he would always be aching for, and Hazel knew that she was the next best thing. Not the first buried his nose in her curly hair, and she felt his breath on the nape of her neck.

"It'll be alright. It's nothing we can't work out. Beside, I already know. I saw your story the moment I lay eyes on you in Asphodel. Trust me, we'll figure it out."

"How can you be sure?' Hazel sobbed. "I've done so many things all wrong! What can I do? How long will this last? I don't want to die again!"

Nico sighed. "It's a lot to deal with, but I've sorted through worse. I don't want to lie to you, so I'm not going to tell you I know it works out happily. But I will make sure that you achieve Elysium if you die again. I'll promise you that." Hazel smelled decay on Nico's cold breath, but she huddled next to him in her long dingy robes, drifting in and out of consciousness.

She felt Nico shift under her before she opened her eyes. His warning look made her shush the question formed on her lips, before she followed his eyes to two red lights glinting in the dense swamp foliage. They were huge and luminous, like dinner plates. A low growl echoed through the woods.

Nico was standing before she could ask him what it was, and suddenly a mass of midnight black fur and fangs was barreling at them through the forest, the size of a rhino  
Somebody screamed, and it wasn't Nico, as splintered wood from the trees whipped past her face. Nico was standing there watching it battle its way towards them, fangs serrated like a sharks and dripping foam.

What was he going to do? Fight it? This boy was nuts, that was for sure.

He drew the black sword hanging on his sword belt calmly, and Hazel could've screamed at him. She wasn't gonna lose the only person she knew just 'cause the boy was a lunatic.

"What's that pigsticker gonna do? Run!" she screamed at Nico, diving behind the fallen tree as a piece of splintered dead tree flew at her while the monster snapped one of the last trees standing between them as it bounded toward them.

"Stygian Iron." Nico replied, like that was supposed to mean anything. If Hazel hadn't been so scared, she might've laughed.

The last seconds before the creature closed the distance to him, Hazel screamed out his name, scrambling madly backwards away from the thing.

She thought he was dead for sure. Before two human skeletons erupted out of the ground at his sides and stabbed the insides of its legs with sharp bony hands before it had time to register the newcomers.

It yowled and snapped up one of the skeletons, scattering bleached bones across the ground, while the other one vaulted on to its wounded leg.

Nico jabbed at it, quicker than she would have thought possible, only to glance its bottom jaw as it swung downward, trying to bite him.

He slid under it, coming up on its side. The remaining skeleton had reached its back, and stabbed downward with its arm, cutting into the flesh. The monster roared and shook like a dog, throwing the undead off it.

Nico took the opportunity as it was distracted to jump up on to it's leg. He pulled himself onto its back as it bit viciously at air, spinning to get to him. Hazel couldn't scream with her heart in her mouth.

Nico pulled a knife out of his pocket, that gleamed like ice in the night, and set about carving something into the beasts back, while it bucked around wildly, screaming and roaring at him, murder in its red eyes.

Hazel couldn't see very well as the creature jumped around in a roaring frenzy, but it looked like Nico cut open his own palm. He said something in an alien, yet familiar language that she might've been able to understand if a beast straight from her nightmares wasn't barking and roaring hatred in seven different languages of animal, and hastily pressed his bleeding hand onto his carving in the monsters back.

Instantly, the beast stopped bucking and running in circles while slavering, but froze, looking straight ahead like it had been called to attention.

Nico called out to her. "Hazel? It's okay. You can come close now. I just got us our ride!"

He was smiling reassuringly at her, panting from the scuffle. It had really happened very quickly, spanning hardly a few minutes, though to Hazel it felt like hours of fright.

She rose shakily from behind the log. Nope. No way. This boy was definitely screwy.  
Nico was perched on the beasts back, wiping blood on his pants from his hands. When the monster was still, she saw that it looked kinda like a dog, but it was much too bulky. It was ripped with muscle and sinew, matted black fur scraggly and tough. Its red eyes looked purposeful and dangerous.

"What've you done?" Hazel said shakily.

Nico slipped off its back, leaving it standing rigidly.

"This is a hellhound. I'm a son of h-Pluto, so I can bend them to my will. They are beasts of our father, after all. Its not hostile anymore. It obeys me."

Hazel was shaking still. She was way outta her comfort zone. Nico approached her carefully.

"Don't worry. Just trust me. Don't you want to sleep in a bed tonight?"

Hazel winced and clutched onto his jacket again, and let him lift her onto the hounds back. He clambered up in front of her, the beast repositioning itself to help him up.  
Hazel wrapped her arms around his waist, holding onto the batty necromancer until they ached.

The hellhound jumped up, springing through the trees, splintering some that it plowed down, while weaving between others.

It ran for about an hour, it's black blood from Nico's carving seeping into the gray cloth on Hazels legs. She really hated the robes.

After a while, it bounded onto a strip of dirt path, that slowly widened and grew into a thick dark grey concrete road, with huge poles sticking out next to it near the trees, wires connecting all of them.

Lights twinkled a ways away, and she watched with unease as they grew closer.  
Nico slipped off the monsters back, helping her down as well.

He laid his hand on the creatures forehead, and it closed its scary red eyes. It bumped its nose against his head, before turning and bounding away into the wilderness again.

Hazel grabbed Nico's hand as they trudged through the trees and around a low stone fence towards the building in sight. The night air was humid and warm, and she guessed it was fall by the splatterings of dried leaves across the earth.

They fell away from the tree line on to a blacktop parking lot that failed to house any automobiles. The building was a rustic, run down looking shack, with a crazy lit up alligator in a hat on the sign. The letters glowed, and Hazel wondered when electricity had become so advanced. The sign read, 'Guidry's Cajun cafe, Oyster po'boys Gumbo'. Empty glass bottles hung on the porch like wind chimes.

Nico sniffed the air and grinned as they walked right up to it. "How do you feel about a first meal?"

To say Hazel hadn't realized how hungry she was wouldn't be true. She had been just about starving since she'd gotten topside. She grinned back at him.

"Oh yes!"

He led her up the creaky wooden steps of the place, which was a little shabby, but the food was probably better for it. She smiled bigger. Oh lord, food. Her mouth was watering thinking about it.

It was still open, somehow, though there was only one other customer inside. It was an open room, with booths and tables, and a counter with tall stools, where Nico led Hazel to sit.

She briefly worried about whether people would wonder about her strange gray robes, before she caught wind of those delicious smells.

She ordered gumbo in a daze and the man behind the counter handed her a steaming bowl.

She shoveled it into her mouth, the taste of real food almost overpowering her. It had been so long, it felt like fireworks were exploding in her mouth. This was living. Nico was watching her with an amused expression, so she loaded her spooned and shoved it into his mouth, much to his surprise.

He managed not to spew it all over, chewing and swallowing.

"That tastes weird." Nico grimaced.

Hazel laughed at his unseasoned tastes. "You're all wet, this is the prime stuff right here, nice and fresh."

Nico frowned, like she had just spoken French. "What?"

Hazel put another spoon of food in her mouth. "You just can't appreciate good tasting things."

Nico nodded absentmindedly. "I don't think people say stuff like that anymore. How am I wet?"

Hazel rolled her eyes. "Jeez, it's a figure of speech."

Nico shrugged.

Hazel smiled at him, cleaning out the rest of her bowl. She looked around the place for the first time, and felt a bad feeling welling up in her stomach, like her gumbo had been rotten.

A television set was playing with colors on the screen. The man behind the counter was pushing buttons on and talking to little glowing thing in his palm. They were all dressed strange as anything.

"Nico..." She said, pushing herself away from the counter. "What year is it?"

Nico sighed. "Hazel...it's 2010."

Hazel felt a little sick. That long? Everyone she knew would be...  
She backpedalled slowly out of the house, Nico throwing a wad of bills that looked like it should've been enough to buy a few bicycles on the counter and grabbing her by the elbow. How pricey had that gumbo been?

"Come on, let's go find somewhere you can spend the night." he said hastily, pulling her away.

She took a deep breath. She could handle this. Of course she could. She knew that she had been dead for a long time.

"I'm okay. Nico, I'm okay."

Nico looked at her long and hard. Hazel noticed how bottomlessly black his eyes were, like they sucked the light out of the world. "Are you sure?"

Hazel nodded.

Nico put an arm around her shoulders, walking down the street toward the rest of the city with her. "We should still find a hotel or something. You're probably pretty tired. I don't want you overtasking yourself and ending up in the basement again."

She sniffed in a tear, letting Nico pull her along a long road into the town that was much too strange for her.

They stepped inside a tall building, where Nico argued with someone behind the desk. Hazel stood silently. She was lost in her thoughts. So she was back. It was hard to wrap her head around that. It had been so sudden. But now she was back, and maybe she could fix the horrible wrongs she'd done.

Nico pulled her up a flight of stairs, and unlocked a room with the keys he'd weaseled out of the person in the lobby.

Hazel stumbled across the floor, curling up on the mattress of one of the beds. She felt Nico slipping off her boots, taking the clip out of her hair, and sliding blankets on top of her. She felt him move away from her, and lurched out to grab his hand. She didn't want to go to sleep if she might slip back away in the night. She wanted to stay alive.

Nico hesitated before lying down on the bed next to her, and wrapping an arm around her. She was almost too tired to cry that night. Almost, as she wet Nico's grungy shirt with tears.

The next few days passed in a blur of her new brother. He went out and got them food to bring back to their hotel room at the Beaudelaire Inn, greasier and saltier than Hazel had ever tasted. The red brick walls of the room where comforting, somehow. He took her out thrifting, so she could get out of the robes of the dead. She mostly liked the old things, that looked more her century. Actually, as it turned out, their century. Hers and Nico's. He bought her vintage clothes, because she needed at least something that looked normal.  
He took back moving pictures to their room to watch on the television set. They came on shiny silver discs that he slid into the box like magic. The pictures weren't as fuzzy as they were supposed to be, and they were in full color, so they looked just like real life. According to Nico, most people had ' ' these days. Most of the pictures scandalized or confused her. Welcome to the future, she guessed.

She still cried when they fell asleep huddled together, for her dead mother now without her, for Sammy, for her old world that made so much more sense than is bright, confusing, age. And she had hardly been out of her hotel room. She wept for all that she had lost because of Gaea, because of her stupid curse.

She sometimes said things to Nico and he would look at her like she had just spoken another language, and then tell her that people didn't talk like that anymore.

After a week in their little hotel room where Hazels world was beginning again, Nico told her about a camp. A camp for people like us, he said. Where she could be safe.  
She didn't want to leave her little bubble of security, but in a days time, she found herself walking into a tunnel in the Berkley hills, with Nico.

"Don't let them see that you're scared." Nico told her quietly. "Romans value strength. And you haven't been trained by Lupa, so they'll probably be doubting."

Hazel straightened the collar of her slightly out of date shirt, and followed Nico down the tunnel. She resisted the urge to anchor herself to him by his jacket.

Two people stood outside a gate, holding old weapons like spears and swords. They looked bored, until they noticed Nico and her approaching, so they stopped leaning on the wall and stood to attention.

When Nico and her stood a few yards away, one of them lowered her spear. Blonde hair fanned out from beneath her helmet.

"Stop! State your name and purpose!" she barked.

"My name is Nico di Angelo, and this is Hazel Levesque. We're here to talk to the Praetors."

She lowered her spear uncertainly. "Do you know them? I've never seen you in camp before. Hold out your arm."

Hazel frowned, but was more than happy to let Nico do the talking this time.  
"We don't go to camp, currently. I'm going to talk to the Praetors about her. Let us in."

Nico was starting to lose his patience with these people, Hazel could see.

The girl looked uncertainly at the other guy.

"Hank, you go with these two into camp. Just make sure they don't kill anybody."

The guy nodded and opened the gate, letting them through. A tunnel wound its way through the hills, that they walked through in silence,until it opened up to a huge valley at the bottom of the hill.

Hazel caught her breath at the sight of it. A shining city was nestled in next to a lake a ways into the valley, amongst sparse woods. The architecture looked old, like from ancient Rome. It was much less startling than the world outside that had moved on without her had been.

Behind the river at the bottom of the hill was the business end of the place. Ramparts with wooden towers were lined with killer-looking spikes. As they got down to the river, Hazel could see people walking around and standing at posts on the gates.

A drawbridge of sorts was rigged up a few hundred yards away.. Hazel reached out to grab Nico's coat, searching for what had pulled her back to life, like a security blanket. He shrugged off her hand and shot her an apologetic glance, reminding her that she needed to look strong. She folded her hands over her stomach nervously.

Hank called up to the people on the ramparts, who dropped the bridge.

A girl with long dark hair and armor stood in a purple cape, waiting for them on the ramparts. Other kids in armor stood around her. Hazel felt something a little like stage fright, and she reached halfway up to Nico's coat before she remembered that she needed to look strong. She put on her best face of courage.

"New recruits for the legion, Reyna?" One guy asked the leader in the purple cape. He had dark hair and a stained mouth.

The girl in the purple cape frowned at them.

Nico pushed Hazel forward. "She is. This is my sister Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto. She's going to be serving in the legion."

Hazel swallowed nervously. So Nico wasn't going to be staying with her?

The girl looked at him with shock. "Pluto? And you want us to just take her in?" She looked like she had just been asked to let a rat eat off her toe.

Nico raised his eyebrows. "Yes. I'm sure the auguries will read in her favor."

Reyna looked infuriated. "Well, we will see if anyone stands for her at evening muster." she turned angrily, cape whipping behind her as she stormed over to the barracks.

Nico leaned in to speak in Hazels ear. "Come on. We have to go see their fortune teller. Try to be nice, because he decides whether the 'omens are in favor' of you joining."

Hazel nodded and let Nico lead her past the soldiers giving them suspicious glances and evil eyes.

They walked silently through the colorful city. Purple ghosts walked around and through the other people, but nobody seemed to care. They shied away from Nico like he had leprosy. Hazel spotted a few people with goats legs. Nico saw her staring.

"The shades are lares. They are the legionaries of the past, who were so devoted to their country that they cling to the spirit of Ancient Rome as other ghosts cling to their buried remains. And those are fauns. They don't do much here. These only beg for money and piss people off."

Hazel was confused. Pissed people off? Nico saw her look of confusion.

"Make people angry. The ones here just annoy people." The way he said 'here' made

Hazel think that he had once seen more useful fauns.

"Have you been here before?" Hazel asked him.

Nico smiled knowingly at her. "Once. But I went unseen."

Hazel bit her lip as they reached a hill with a mighty temple set on it. Other temples ranged across the hill, one with blood red paint and spikes, a ramshackle blue building that looked more like an abandoned shed, among many others.

Nico caught her elbow loosely, and turned her attention to a small black crypt with bones littering the roof. "The temple of our father."

Hazel looked, feeling a little pull. She didn't want to think about their father too much.  
Nico stared at her seriously and looked over his shoulder, checking for eavesdroppers. He lowered his voice. "I wouldn't advise you to pray too much. You're not supposed to be alive. Don't call to much attention to yourself with the gods. If they can though, I'd bet most of them will turn a blind eye, as much as they might hate it. Pluto, at least, has said a few things that make me think that he has a plan for you."

Hazels gaze stayed on the black building until Nico pulled her onward toward the temple at the top of the hill.

At the steps of the temple, Nico stopped. "I'll see you at the evening muster. Gods go with you." he said, holding out his hand to the temple, inviting her to go in by herself. She took a deep breath, and went on.

As she stepped through the awning of the building, a huge statue of Jupiter greeting her with a stony gaze. He held a big lightning bolt, a zigzag made of marble. Hazel craned her head back to take in the massive statue.

At an altar at the back of the temple, a scrawny boy was straightening a collection of stuffed animals.

She cleared her throat. "Uh-hello? I'm Hazel."

The boy looked around, and his face lit up. But it didn't look like he was happy she was here.

"A new recruit, surely! My name is Octavian, after the great Octavian of ancient Rome, legacy of Apollo. I possess his rare and powerful blessing of prophecy. You must be here to receive my augury. Wait right there."

The scarecrow boy had wispy blonde hair, and looked like he had hardly enough muscle to do a push-up, though he looked healthy enough. He grabbed a stuffed rabbit off the shelf and walked across the room to the altar, where he grabbed a gold dagger off a holder and abruptly sliced open the bunnies midsection.

Hazel recoiled in confusion, as he gutted the animal and spread the stuffing over the altar.  
He hefted a large book up, and rifled through it, finger running across pages as he flipped back and forth.

"Well! Daughter of Pan!"

Hazel frowned. "Uh, Pluto."

The scarecrow glared at her. It wasn't that impressive. "Yes. Well, this rabbit was poorly made. Mass production these day, you know."

Octavian tapped his chin with his fingers calculatingly. "Hmm...the omens..." Hazel had a feeling he wasn't reading the stuffing of the future anymore.

He looked back to his stuffing for a moment. "The omen for the dead is here, Hazel. Perhaps that's because of your lineage."

Hazel felt a knot in her stomach.

Octavian deliberated for another moment before speaking. "Good news! You can join the legion!" Hazel let out the breath she had been holding.

"Thank you." she smiled tentatively at him, trying her best to get along well with these kids.

Octavian smiled back like a crocodile. "And Hazel, don't prove this augury wrong! I would hate to have a negative second reading. There were some interesting omens in this one. Riches. Curses. Traitors. It wouldn't do if other campers caught wind of a bad word here and there."

Hazels lips jutted to the side of her face. Octavian was only out for his own blackmailing skin. This boy was a self-absorbed jerk. She resolved that she wouldn't buy into his stupid self-serving purposes.

She turned grumpily and stalked out of the stupid gold temple. She wouldn't let this kid control her here, back from the dead or not. She had been a puppet in her first life, and she didn't have plans to be in her second.

She walked into the city of New Rome, and sat down alone on the rim of a fountain. It showed a stone hydra pouring water from all its heads. It was beautiful, but she was preoccupied.

This place was so new. She had just been starting to feel comfortable in her little hotel room with Nico. She guessed that she couldn't spend her whole life huddled in a tiny room with one bathroom though. Why not though? Part of her wanted to hang on to the only scrap of security she had in this strange, fast world. But by now, she had grasped that Nico saw that she wasnt his real sister, who he had grown up with. He wanted his sister painfully, and she was simply the next best thing. He cared for her, she supposed, in a sad way.

She wanted to do something with this second chance desperately, but at the same time, felt paralyzed. She had been done. It was over. She had been resigned to sitting under a tree in the trampled yellow grass for all eternity. No goals. No happiness. No sadness. No new tomorrow. It would be gray and unchanging. It had turned out how it had turned out, and there was no changing anything. It would have been mist and memories forever, as the mountains came down and the sky fell, she would always be sitting right there.  
But now, she had abruptly been tossed into a strange, bright world, where things were familiar, but alien, like an old friend that you see again after many years, who has changed so drastically so you don't even know them anymore. It was better at Camp Jupiter, she supposed. Things looked even older than she was.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the blowing of a horn. She followed some kids in armor out to a courtyard in the military encampment. A golden blonde boy in a matching purple cape to Reyna's caught her eye and motioned for her to stand over at the side of the legion.

Reyna rode through the lines of soldiers on a gorgeous light brown stallion with wings. Hazel looked at him with envy. She used to love riding. She should have asked Nico to take her horseback riding while she still could've.

She stood there awkwardly, spotting Nico perched on a wall a behind where they were gathered. He threw a quick look of encouragement in her direction.

They called through a long list of names, like back in primary school when they had done attendance.

Finally, Reyna and the other leader who Hazel learned was Jason turned to her.

"This is Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto. She seeks to join the legion."

Octavian, who turned out to be a blooming centurion, came forward. "Do you have letters of recommendation?"

Hazel looked around uncomfortably? Letters of recommendation?

"No..." she said.

Octavian snorted derisively. "Just as I suspected! Will anyone stand?"

There was stomach-churning silence for almost a full minute before Hazel heard somebody pounding their shield on the ground. It was the guy with the stained mouth from before. The rest of the people near him joined in.

Octavian smiled. "Fifth Cohort. Perfect. Hazel, why don't you go stand over by your new friends."

The girl in the purple cape glared at him. "Octavian, it's not your place to give orders. Hazel, stand with your centurions Dakota and Gwen."

Hazel walked back to where the guy with the stained mouth was standing next to a tall blonde girl.

Standing among the legionaries, she suddenly felt very unprepared for this. Why couldn't she just do something with her life in a cheap hotel room with her favorite malnourished necromancer? She didn't have any weapons or armor. She wondered when she could get some.

Jason pointed toward Hazel. "Announced Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto, probatio of the Fifth Cohort and in service to the legion!"

There were some half-hearted claps, but mostly sniggers and whispers. Hazel pursed her lips. She had a long way to go yet, but she decided that she was going to fix all the mistakes she had made the first time around, whether that sent her back downstairs or not.

"You're not staying with me?" Hazel pleaded.

Nico and Hazel stood together in the growing dusk next to the barracks. Hazel had to be in her bunk in the next ten minutes. She had played death ball that evening, and Hazel had gotten her stuffing knocked out and charred, but she had learned.

"I'll be by to visit not for a while. You need to make a name here. Get more comfortable. Besides, hanging out with me never did anyone any favors. You'll be better off." Nico told her.

Hazel sniffed and nodded, determined to not show weakness.

She caught him up in a hug, and he returned it a little belatedly, wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her lightly on the forehead, and burying his face in her curly hair. He smelled like grave dust and decay, but she almost cried again. Almost, as she smiled at him and watched him stride into the shadows and slip away.

* * *

(**AN) Thanks for reading! Please review, I really need to know what you think. As always, I love contructive criticism.**


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